


Laurus nobilis

by BlackJacketsandPens



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Spoilers - Kingdom Hearts III, my poor sad boy, now with bonus canon compliance and sibling feels, once again fuck you khux you made me wait too long i'm making shit up myself now, rewritten and reuploaded bc kh3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 03:37:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17932106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens
Summary: He has had many names over his life, many identities. And he's lost just as much throughout them. Heart, memories, freedom -- family -- what else is there to take? Through it all, though, he exists.A story of Lauriam, of Marluxia, of the Keybearer turned Nobody turned Lord of Castle Oblivion. Rewritten and reuploaded due to KH3 and new lore.





	Laurus nobilis

Once upon a time, there was a fairy.

This fairy, like all fairies, lived quite happily in Pixie Hollow. It was a lovely place, as all who know of it know -- filled with life through all the four seasons, and filled with so many of the gossamer-winged beings we know as fairies. Not fae, not the Fair Folk: _fairies_. 

There were the water talents, the light talents, fast-flying fairies and dust talents. Animal talents and winter fairies. Tinker fairies -- we all know the most famous of those -- and, of course, garden talents, like our fairy. Garden talents, those that help the grass grow, the flowers bloom, choose the colors of all the new blossoms and make gardens all flourish to their full potential.

His name was Laurel, and, rarity among fairies, he had a sister. Born of the same laugh, blessed with the same talent, she was a few moments younger and he doted on her like she was the reason the seasons changed. Her name was Strelitzia.

They were happy. All fairies were. They were content with their lives, going about their days and bringing each season to an open and close. Even Miss Bell, with her incessant habit of causing trouble, couldn’t really bring a permanent cloud upon Pixie Hollow. It was a good life.

Until the darkness came. Like all worlds, like all parts of worlds, the Hollow could not remain protected from the darkness for long, and this little nook of a world connected to Neverland was consumed.

Laurel was consumed, too. Trapped in his garden, surrounded by monsters -- one of them freezing his wings, shattering them beyond repair -- he fell. He fell, and for a brief and terrible moment, he thought he was going to die, and worse: he didn’t know where Strelitzia was. The thought of her death was worse by far than the thought of his own, and that thought made his heart shine.

And then a Keyblade appeared in his hand, and then the fairy was brought to safety, to Daybreak Town, to join the children’s war. He found himself child-sized, human-sized, as old as the rest of them -- no one above eighteen, really, the fairy-turned-teenage-boy noticed -- and his wings were missing. Were he to find his sister, he couldn’t fix them. He would just...have to wait until they could go home. But he had to find her first.

He was met by a few children, and the stumbling of his introduction gave him a new name, one that stuck despite everything and one he decided to keep: he wasn’t Laurel anymore, after all, he wasn’t a fairy. Might as well have a new name for who he was now.

And so he became Lauriam.

He was like all Keybearers, fighting the Heartless, gathering Lux, battling raid bosses and competing for first place every week -- he was in Anguis, though, so the best they could really ever do was third -- and enjoying the company of his Chirithy. But all the same, he was lonely. He missed the easy camaraderie of the fairies, not this...awkwardness, where you helped a group with something and then never saw them again. He missed having friends, having a family you could count on. He missed his sister, more than anything else in the world.

It was one morning, while he was watching the dawn --- a habit that died hard, a habit he kept from his old life, watching and pretending the fairies, his people, were the ones bringing the dew and the sunrise and the flowers as they woke --- that he found her. She had arrived as well, a Keyblade in her own hand from her shining heart, but separate from him. Her wings hidden but undamaged, she was otherwise unharmed, in Vulpes with a party (one that was large, a comfort, but impersonal, which made her sad; she was already shy and nervous, and could not approach)...but it was her. It was his sister. He cried, then, and hugged her, and she cried too, and they were reunited, they were together. Never again to be parted. They were in different Unions, but that didn’t matter to them --- they went on missions together when they weren’t helping their parties, spent mornings together before they left, shared lunch, and even moved into the same little apartment--- their room was a garden all its own, a reminder of their home. 

They gained true friends eventually, Strelitzia a blonde girl from her party she spent time with, a sandy haired boy from an ocean world that hated to fight, and Lauriam met a blond boy, pale and with a taste for games. Days, weeks, years, they fought, and slowly things started to come apart. People in their unions disappearing, in all unions -- their party slowly falling one by one, until it was just the two of them and one or two others. The town was emptying out, the Foretellers squabbling, and the feeling in the air was that of an ending, not swift and painless but slow, a bleeding out and not a quick death.

It was then he was approached. Ava, her name was, one of the Foretellers. She offered him a chance -- not as a Dandelion, she said, handing over a small leatherbound book, but as a guardian of them. One of the new Foretellers, after the war and after they were gone. He wouldn’t be alone, she promised, but she needed someone to watch over them, to lead the new unions after the war was ended and everything had settled. And she wanted him.

He agreed. Of course he would. It was an honor to be asked, to be considered. That he was worthy of this position? He would do his best to live up to what was asked of him. He couldn’t wait to tell Strelitzia--- oh, he couldn’t tell her everything, but knowing what was going to happen, knowing the end of it all was coming...there was no way he’d let her fight. He had to convince her to join the Dandelions. He tried, begged, pleaded, but she was still unsure, still afraid of leaving people who didn’t--- leaving the person she watched, the one who hadn’t joined, the quiet Keybearer she watched from afar, too shy to approach. She wanted them safe, but she wasn’t sure until then. He kept trying, though.

And then she vanished. Like morning mist, disappeared in the sun, she was gone. He searched, he kept searching, all the way to the war--- would she fight? Did she follow the subject of her admiration to the battlefield? But he couldn’t find her.

He had always prided himself on knowing everything about everyone -- a habit of gossip from his old life put to good use in this one -- but he knew nothing about this. He had to, though. His sister was was missing, and he didn’t know where or why or how. But he’d find out.

He knew, as he waited and watched the final battle, that he was not Laurel anymore, the cheerful, somewhat vain, and altogether carefree fairy dead and gone. Lauriam was someone else now, still with the edges of that charm and pride but tempered into something else, something more driven, more calculating, someone who’d watched too much death and too much betrayal to really be able to be innocent ever again. That was alright. He couldn’t go back, anyway, as long as his wings were broken and Strelitzia couldn't fix them, and if this was who he was, that was okay. He could live with himself, still. He’d done his best, he’d fought for the light, and when the dust settled he’d protect the Dandelions as he’d been asked to. He might not be innocent anymore, might be harder and prouder beneath his sharpened smile, but his words were still genuine in their sweetness and his eyes were still warm.

He met with the others, then, running a little late -- no fault of theirs, but of his, searching the keys and the bodies for his sister’s bright hair and finding nothing -- and found himself the last one to arrive. Well, that was alright. At least he’d made it -- and the others seemed nice. Two from Unicornis, friends already, one from Leopardus, a small blond with an easy smile that somehow kept its innocence, and a boy whose eyes matched his in their proudness beneath his hat, from Anguis like him. 

Their names were Ephemer, Skuld, Ventus (‘call me Ven!’), and Blaine.

They returned to the clock tower, then, preparing Dream Eaters to help ease the Dandelions’ troubled dreams, watching over them as they slept and discussing, planning, wondering what to do next, after it was time for them to wake. Would they keep the unions separate, or would they all just lead one? Did they want to make the same choices -- the same mistakes? -- or try something new? There was a lot to think about.

And Lauriam never stopped thinking about Strelitzia. 

He searched, looked, spoke to everyone he could --- recruited his friends, the three they’d grown close to, Elrena and the two boys, who had become Dandelions as well --- and tried everything. Every angle, every idea, every trail, but it all grew cold, even talking to her faraway friend, who’d been Ephemer’s too, hauled into this data world before they could die. Nothing. No sign, no notice, nothing. But he kept looking, trying, anything he could...anything at all. She was his sister. She was the one thing in the world that he cared about most. He fought this fight for her, everything for her. She was so bright, and he’d wanted to give her the world...she was his purpose for being. He had to know what happened.

He was on his own one day, going through the piles of paperwork in the clock tower for the hundredth time, when he found his answers. A list, scribbled in neat and precise handwriting -- Ava, he assumed -- of five names. The new Foretellers. 

_Ephemer,_ it read. _Skuld. Ventus. Lauriam. Strelitzia._

He had to read it three more times before the words solidified, forming into a chunk of ice in his chest that sank into his stomach, freezing the rest of him. Strelitzia? She was meant to be-- she was a-- it was her? It was supposed to be _her_ , here? She had been called? That she’d known the end was coming, what the Chirithy had said, had made him suspect, but this--- this confirmed it. She was supposed to be _here_. With him. With them.

And then he realized what name was missing.

The ice melted, then, replaced by fire and rage, boiling in his chest. He had killed her. Blaine had murdered her. Blaine had _murdered his sister_. Why? Why would he-- for the book, for the spot here with them watching the Dandelions? Why was that-- why would it-- 

He hardly remembered hunting Blaine down, finding the boy and shoving the paper in his face, demanding answers, demanding to know what his game was, why he was doing this. He was foolish, furious, in pain, not thinking. No strategy, no backup plans, just bright blazing anger. (He didn’t see his friends seeing him, Elrena and the others, running after him with fear in their hearts at the anger in his eyes.)

The boy didn’t deny it. For them, for the Dandelions, he said. This world was a doomed one, fated to fall, a ruined timeline. There was no saving it. But he would be the engineer of their salvation, the virus in the matrix. He’d save them all, destroy the shackles of destiny. He was very sorry about the girl -- no he wasn’t, Lauriam could see it in his eyes -- but she was a necessary death. Sometimes death was the right thing, when it led to others’ survival. She should be proud of the part she played.

He attacked him, then. Of course he did. How could he not? He’d murdered her, he’d killed his _sister_ , and he didn’t care. Virus this, destiny that. It was nonsense, total nonsense. So what if this world was doomed, so what if destiny said that eventually it would die? They were here to protect the Dandelions, they were here to bring them somewhere safe, but...if that was not to be, then it wasn’t to be. He knew better than that -- day and night, winter and summer, life and death, it was a cycle like the seasons, a balance. You couldn’t just destroy the nighttime, destroy winter, destroy _death_. No matter how much you didn’t like it, it wasn’t _wrong_. It was just part of how the worlds all worked. If they were supposed to die, if the world was supposed to die, it was just the coming of winter. There would be spring eventually.

Trying to cheat death, snap the balance of the cycle of life, would just destroy everything as surely as the battle between light and darkness had.

They fought, then, fiercely, but Lauriam lost -- he was too angry, too hurting, too frustrated and in pain. A lucky blow hit him hard in the back of the head and he went down, crumpling. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness, though, was Blaine ripping the paper with their names on it to shreds, the last thing he heard his friends' voices, Elrena screaming rage as they charged in to help him.

He woke briefly, still on the ground, snippets of a conversation above him, shouting. He faintly recognized Ephemer, Skuld, Ven-- an argument? But where were his friends, where were the others? He didn’t hear Elrena, the boys. What was going on? He tried to push himself up, saw faintly a key in Blaine’s hand that he didn’t recognize, black and silver and with a blazingly blue eye on it that seemed to stare into his soul. More shouting, more voices, and then--- nothing, an explosion of nothing that rendered him unconscious.

He woke up next lying on his back in an unfamiliar place -- a world he didn’t recognize. He was disoriented, confused, feeling like he’d just woken up after a nap far longer than a few hours of unconsciousness -- was he...what had...where…?

_Who was he?_

He remembered nothing. He knew his name, Lauriam, knew that much, knew in a sort of distant way that the pink hair and blue eyes he saw in the reflection of a lake was his, but--- that was it. He was empty, hollowed out, confused and disoriented, somewhere he didn’t know. (He has no idea that he isn’t meant to look like this, that the price he paid that took his memories had taken time from him, too, made him taller and broadened his shoulders, made an adult out of an eternally young fairy.)

He spends...he doesn’t know how long, on this unfamiliar world, trying to find answers --- that still drove him, somehow, the need for answers, a need for something to fill up the empty space in his heart where memories once were. There was something he was _missing_. A purpose, a reason. He needed to find it again. 

The Heartless came for him, eventually. A heart bruised and cracked and battered was still a heart, no matter how dim its light had become, and it was like the sweetest temptation for them. He stepped back, turned to run, unconsciously calling the plants at his feet to trip the creatures up as they came for him, not knowing how he had this power but trying to fight even as he fled. But he couldn’t run forever, and...they caught up, and he was gone.

He woke up, though. No unfamiliar world, this time, just the same one--- but now there was darkness and a strange empty hollow feeling in his chest, one that muffled the pain and the confusion and loss and made it very distant, like frayed and faded memories. Just that and a man in a black coat, single golden eye bright with hidden knowledge as he smiled down at him.

He followed that man, then, dazed and confused and empty, and was taken to a castle, white and sterile, where he was eleventh of the people within, eleven in black coats. He was given one, too, given a coat and a name and a number, a title to go with it and a weapon as well, a scythe. If he could remember, he would find it funny. A scythe to reap the harvest, a sign of autumn and the beginning of death, so unlike the power of spring and life that he held, sharpness where there had once been gentleness.

But there was no gentleness in him now, was there? Shaped by war, the fairy had become a young man, no longer innocent but still with warmth in his eyes and sincerity in his smile. And now shaped by loss and with his memories and heart torn from him, that young man became an adult, hard and cold, hollow and empty.

Empty blue eyes and smiles that held nothing, an instinctual talent for gossip turned to eavesdropping, gathering information, gathering knowledge. Pride and arrogance and a determination to never be betrayed again, never be hurt again--- where had it come from? He didn’t know, but it felt like it was part of him. He knew his powers, now, and felt a connection to roses, somehow, bright and beautiful, but-- not the flowers, the colors and their soft beauty. He’d be their thorns, and no one would get near him again. No one would be above him, no one around him. It would just be him, alone, and he wanted it that way. 

His name was Marluxia, then, the Graceful Assassin.

The woman that came next was hurt, too, bared her teeth and knives as he wore his thorns, protecting her hollow core that held no memories, no heart--- just like him, and perhaps because of that he was drawn to her, because of that they grew close. She was a wounded hawk, a huntress, sharp and wild like her lightning. That fit him, somehow, he thought, and they worked together well. 

And work together they would -- he did not trust this Organization, not for a moment. Not their goals, not their leader. Kingdom Hearts, he’d heard whispered, the way to regain what they’d lost. But somehow, he knew better: it was no magic cure-all for the hollow ones. It was war and death and destruction. Of that he was sure, and the idea of being betrayed, the idea of allowing himself to be used...he may be empty, but that...that he could not abide, and neither could his partner.

A coup was planned, a coup was plotted, and then came the child with a key. He hadn’t met him, but had heard -- and though he did not know what that meant, what it was...he knew he wanted it for himself. A desire for that, whatever it was, something pulling him towards the idea of it. A _Keyblade_. It... _meant_ something to him, for the first time, and he wanted the answer it promised.

And then the boy’s Nobody joined them, number thirteen, and his face was familiar, as familiar as the key he held, and...he wanted that boy too. Wanted the answers that seemed so close.

But no. There was no time to wait and waste. If he couldn’t have the key himself, if he couldn’t have this Nobody -- then he would have the other one. Assigned to Castle Oblivion...good. This would be their chance. He didn’t have a plan quite yet, but one was forming: with that boy’s key, he would tear the lies of the Organization apart, he and the huntress that stood with him. And they would regain their hearts...and their memories. Perhaps this castle would have the way to give those back to him.

And then there was a girl in the castle, another Nobody. A soft, doe-eyed rabbit of a girl, all in white, with faded blue eyes that were so familiar, who looked up at him with curiosity and hope, loneliness in every line of her as she sat alone in the rooms of this empty place.

The girl was familiar, too, the same as the key and the Nobody boy, but this familiarity stung like nettles, wounded him every time he looked her way, every time the corner of his vision supplied sunset hair instead of pale gold. This girl was something he had no answers for, questions that caused nothing but remembered pain, and he did not regret making those eyes look at him with fear instead of hope. But--- part of him rebelled. Part of him wanted to lock her away, hide her away from the world, force her into solitude and keep her away from anything that would break her or harm her. He didn’t know why, but the desire to hurt her warred with the desire to lock her away for her own good, and it made his head hurt--- he hated it. So he bared his thorns and the little girl shrunk away, and he could work with that.

He could work with her. Memories were a strange thing, so very important and so very painful, and they could be changed. He wondered if she could restore his, but...no. Her power could not touch him. It was only for the boy with the key. It was frustrating, but--- it would do. Without his memories, the boy would be anything he wanted. And what he wanted was a weapon. 

He got a weapon, all right. The boy’s heart…it was a hero’s. And he had forgotten what that was like. He had forgotten what it meant to be a hero, to fight for the light and to fight for one’s friends. He had forgotten the strength that came from that. The boy’s heart was too strong -- even bound by the chains the witch had put on him, he fought, he stood strong, and in his last few minutes Marluxia remembered what it was like to have a heart: to hate, to be angry, to be desperate, to be afraid.

And then he was gone.

But not for long-- oh, no. As much as he had fought, as much as he had defied the Superior, he had fallen into the trap all the same. Eyes of gold when he looked in a mirror, a piece of a heart not his own in his chest, his partner and the other Nobodies, most of them, bound to this new role and new task. No matter what he wanted, it was what he had.

Who was he, now, he wondered. He had no heart, no memories, and now no freedom. What was left? Sharp smiles and empty eyes, bitterness and insincere charm, hollow words and meaningless pride. That was all he was. Thorns and brambles around an overgrown and empty garden.

He had been empty as Lauriam, even more so as Marluxia. Now what was he? Nothing, really. Nothing at all. The only thing in him wasn’t his own, and...without that, he was meaningless. Even if the answers he sought, the suspicions he had, seemed closer than ever --- a legacy of the Keyblade? --- he still didn’t have them. And maybe he never would...he almost didn’t care anymore.

Well, whatever he was...it didn’t matter, he supposed. He was just a pawn in this game of chess, and...he would play his part. He had nothing else left to do.

(And then the boy strikes him down once more, and in those moments, as he fades, he _remembers_. He knows she does too, staring at him with warm recognition in her eyes as she fades herself, but he remembers everything, his heart and memories filling him up once more and giving him back everything he was, giving him back Laurel, Lauriam, making him whole--- and giving him back his sister. His purpose for being, bittersweet and full of loss he never got to resolve, but she is in his heart again, his forgotten Strelitzia, and…

Whatever comes next, he knows who he is again. Battered and bruised, forever wingless, tired and hurting and guilty and ashamed...he is himself again, whole at last.

He is Lauriam again, truly and completely, whoever that might be.)

**Author's Note:**

> SO ANYWAY HERE'S THIS ONE REWRITTEN TOO, I LOVE YOU GUYS FOR PUTTING UP WITH ME.
> 
> As I said last time, you can pry Lauriam was innocent out of my cold dead hands, and oh, look at that, he is. I told you fuckers so. I wasn't expecting the sister reveal, and I am still not over it, and THEN KH3 AND I HATE IT MORE, THANKS. (And the whole...fairy siblings thing hurts worse with the broken wings bit, because...a sibling's wings is the only fix. And now she's gone.)
> 
> Can they at least see each other again before Strelitzia passes on??? Please???


End file.
